Banker arrested in recovery case

MUMBAI: An HDFC bank manager and two of his recovery agents have been arrested on a complaint from a Girgaum-based executive who said they kept threatening him and his wife to repay a loan they had already cleared. This comes just hours after police commissioner DN Jadhav on Thursday warned banks about using loan recovery agents.

The complainant’s wife told the police the recovery agents misbehaved with her when she was home alone. The executive had taken a loan of Rs5,000 from HDFC in March 2005.

In December 2006 he paid back Rs16,000, which included the principal amount and the compound interest. “The complainant has documents to prove he has repaid the loan,” said sub-inspector Jagdish Kulkarni of the Anti-Extortion Cell. “Despite that, they continued to harass the couple and threatened them with dire consequences.”

Police quoted the couple as saying the bank froze their account in June claiming they had defaulted. “The bank told the couple they did not have documents to prove the loan had been repaid,” Kulkarni said.

The manager Umesh Shetty, 39, and the two recovery agents Suresh Yadav, 20, and Pradeep Rawat alias Aariz Pathan, 26, have been remanded to police custody till October 3.

The trio has been booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 34 (common intention), 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman), 387 (extortion) and 503 (criminal intimidation).

Neeraj Jha, HDFC Bank's public relations officer confirmed the arrests. “They have been arrested and investigations are on. I cannot comment further,” said Jha.